Bananas

By Frank Rich

THE IN-LAWS Directed by Arthur Hiller Screenplay by Andrew Bergman

The In-Laws is a silly, badly made and squeaky-clean comedy that just happens to deliver more whopping laughs than any other film this year. At its best, this movie recalls the joyous anarchy of the Road pictures; at its worst, it looks like overexposed outtakes from Gilligan's Island. Luckily, the weak sections never run on too long. Every time The In-Laws starts to stumble into oblivion, Peter Falk cocks his head, stares the manic Alan Arkin in the eye, and launches into an earnest if bizarre discourse about the travails of being a CIA agent. "The trick [of my job] is not to get killed," confides Falk, sotto voce. "That's the key to the benefit program."

Falk and Arkin are thrown together when their respective children decide to marry. The newlyweds (Penny Peyser and Michael Lembeck) are upstanding graduates of Mount Holyoke and Yale; the dads are students of Groucho and Chico. Sheldon Kornpett (Arkin) is a very nervous man who delights in being "among the first dentists in New York to use the drill that spritzes water." Vince Ricardo (Falk) claims to have dreamed up the Bay of Pigs invasion. Sheldon wonders if Vince might be nuts, but Vince has proof of his most famous exploit: an autographed portrait of J.F.K. with the inscription, "At least we tried."

As Writer Andrew Bergman's cockamamy script would have it, Vince is currently involved in a complex scheme to prevent an international monetary crisis. Runaway inflation is a terrible thing, Vince explains, because people start to use currency as wallpaper and tend to listen to atonal music. Though Sheldon wants nothing to do with his inlaw, he soon becomes his unwitting accomplice. What follows is a nonstop series of shootouts, chase scenes and mishaps that catapult the heroes from suburban New Jersey to Manhattan's treacherous West 30s and finally to a banana republic so corrupt that its main drag is called United Fruit Boulevard. There are encounters with the daredevil Chinese pilots of Wong Airlines, a mad Latin dictator (Richard Libertini) and a full symphony orchestra conducted by Carmen Dragon.

Bergman, a satirical detective novelist (Hollywood and LeVine) and sometime Mel Brooks collaborator (Blazing Saddles), has a splendid knack for the non sequitur. He thinks nothing of interrupting a tense action sequence for throwaway lines about freeze-dried coffee or The Price Is Right. His inventive writing could not be in the hands of a better cast. Sounding a bit like the bastard son of Bugs Bunny and Humphrey Bogart, Falk delivers his wildest speeches with a cool sincerity that bespeaks true comic madness. Arkin is the wailing violin that accompanies Falk's gravel-toned bass. Together these actors form the funniest comic team since Zero Mostel met Gene Wilder in Brooks' The Producers. Not only should the in-laws reunite as soon as possible, but they should also bring Co-Star Libertini back for another ride. His rapid-fire portrayal of the martinet, General Garcia, is at once a deranged Senor Wences routine and a one-man revival of The Mouse That Roared.

Director Arthur Hiller (Silver Streak) keeps the cast in tight control, and that is all he does. He misedits the slapstick sequences, bathes every scene in pasty white light and seems incapable of placing the camera in its proper position. Then again, maybe it is just as well that there is not a first-rate film maker behind The In-Laws. Had someone directed this movie for all it is worth, the audience might never get up from the floor.

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